I'm a 170lb novice with a new (to me) 2000 TXT280. I've been messing about in my back yard and the suspension just felt dead. Turns out both compression and rebound on the front forks were set all the way out. I would have expected this to make it feel bouncy, but it actually felt over damped. I set both clickers to the midpoint and it feels much better. Before I wasn't able to bounce the front wheel off the ground without help from the engine and now I can. I haven't touched the rear shock yet and don't even know where the previous owner had it. The video manual from the US importer says the shock comes with the damping all the way out.

What is a good starting point for the fork and shock damping until I can get enough experience to set them correctly? How about the middle of each clicker range?

No response, so let me ask this questions instead:

Where do you have the damping set on your shock and how much do you weight?

Read Jon Stoodley's article here, you will have to ignore the bit that says record the settings before you start adjusting but the common problems section at the end should help you to get things set up to your liking. In the absence of base settings I would set all damping adjusters to their mid point and see what it is like